The Honourable Carmel Tebbutt
15thDeputy Premier of New South Wales
In office 5 September 2008 – 28 March 2011
Premier	Nathan Rees Kristina Keneally
Preceded by	John Watkins
Succeeded by	Andrew Stoner
Member of theNew South Wales Legislative Assembly forMarrickville
In office 17 September 2005 – 6 March 2015
Preceded by	Andrew Refshauge
Succeeded by	Seat abolished
Member of theNew South Wales Legislative Council
In office 30 April 1998 – 26 August 2005
Ministerial positions Preceded by Ann Symonds Succeeded by Penny Sharpe Minister for Climate Change and the Environment In office 8 September 2008 – 14 September 2009 Premier Nathan Rees Kristina Keneally Preceded by Verity Firth Succeeded by John Robertson Minister for Commerce In office 8 September 2008 – 14 September 2009 Premier Nathan Rees Kristina Keneally Preceded by Eric Roozendaal Succeeded by Jodi McKay Minister for Education and Training In office 21 January 2005 – 2 April 2007 Premier Morris Iemma Preceded by Andrew Refshauge Succeeded by John Della Bosca Minister for Community Services, Disability Services, Ageing and Youth In office 2 January 2003 – 21 January 2005 Premier Bob Carr Preceded by Faye Lo Po' Succeeded by Reba Meagher Minister for Juvenile Justice In office 8 April 1999 – 2 April 2003 Premier Bob Carr Preceded by Position established Succeeded by Diane Beamer
Party leadership positions ActingPremier of New South Wales In office 3 December 2009 – 4 December 2009 Governor Marie Bashir Preceded by Nathan Rees Succeeded by Kristina Keneally Deputy Leader of the Labor Party in New South Wales In office 5 September 2008 – 28 March 2011 Preceded by John Watkins Succeeded by Linda Burney
Personal details
Born	(1964-01-22)22 January 1964 (age 62) Forbes, New South Wales, Australia
Party	Labor
Spouse	Anthony Albanese ​ ​ (m. 2000; div. 2019)​
Children	1

Carmel Mary Tebbutt (born 22 January 1964)^[1] is an Australian former politician. She was theLabor Party Member for the former seat ofMarrickville in theNew South Wales Legislative Assembly until the2015 election and wasDeputy Premier of New South Wales from 2008 to 2011. She was alsoMinister for Health in theKeneally Government. She is the first woman to hold the position of Deputy Premier of New South Wales.^[2]

Tebbutt is one of seven children. She was born and raised in the countryNew South Wales town ofForbes. Her family then moved to theSutherland Shire inSydney where she attended Our Lady of Fatima Catholic primary school,Our Lady of Mercy College, Burraneer then completed her HSC atDe La Salle College, Cronulla. She went on to earn an Economics degree from theUniversity of Sydney, graduating in 1986. She joined theLabor Party in 1985, as a member of itsleft-wing faction.^[3]

Tebbutt was elected to a seat onMarrickville Council in 1993 before becoming Deputy Mayor in 1995. She was appointed to theNew South Wales Legislative Council filling a vacancy following the retirement ofAnn Symonds in 1998.^[4]

After theCarr Government was re-elected in 1999, she wasMinister for Juvenile Justice. In July 2002, Tebbutt was promoted, given responsibility for the Ministries of Community Services, Ageing, Disability Services, and Youth, whilst retaining the Juvenile Justice portfolio. In a cabinet reshuffle in early 2005, she was promoted toMinister for Education and Training.^[4]

In her 2014 Valedictory Speech to the NSW Legislative Assembly, reflecting on her time as Minister for Education, Tebbutt stated: "One of the greatest gifts we can give young people is a love of learning from a young age, and we are very fortunate that we have teachers who quietly and determinedly go about fostering this each and every day."^[5]

FollowingPremierBob Carr's unexpected resignation 27 July 2005, and the resultant resignations ofDeputy PremierAndrew Refshauge and Senior MinisterCraig Knowles, the 'Triple-M' by-elections for the seats ofMaroubra, Marrickville andMacquarie Fields were held on 17 September 2005. The new incoming Premier,Morris Iemma, was said to have favoured her for the position of deputy leader—and hence Deputy Premier—as having a woman in the role would have looked favourably with the electorate. However, in accordance with longstanding Labor tradition, the deputy leader is chosen by theSocialist Left faction.^[6]

Tebbutt resigned from the Legislative Council on 26 August to seek election for the seat ofMarrickville. Hence for the three-week period from 26 August to 17 September 2005, Tebbutt was in the unusual, though not unprecedented, position of being a Minister of the State, without being a member of parliament.^[7]

Tebbutt successfully defended the seat of Marrickville for the Labor Party in herby-election. With noLiberal candidate contesting the election in this comfortably safe Labor seat, the ALP primary vote increased, though she suffered a 5.6% two-candidate preferred swing to the Greens.^[8][9]

Tebbutt successfully held the seat of Marrickville at the2007 election, but announced after it that she would not be a candidate for thenew ministry and would return to the back bench so she could spend more time with her family.^[10]

A meeting of the Left faction on 4 September 2008 saw her return to the front bench as she was elected as theDeputy Leader of the NSW Labor Party. Following the resignation ofMorris Iemma and the selection ofNathan Rees as the new Premier the following day, she was sworn in as Deputy Premier of New South Wales.^[11] She was sworn in asMinister for Climate Change and the Environment andMinister for Commerce on 7 September 2008.^[12]

A little over a year later, Rees was deposed as Labor leader and Premier, in favour ofKristina Keneally. Tebbutt remained as Deputy Leader and Deputy Premier under Keneally, and becameMinister for Health.^[13]

With Labor sinking in the polls going into the2011 election, there was some speculation that Tebbutt would be toppled by a Green candidate. Indeed, theABC'sAntony Green predicted that Tebbutt would be defeated by Green candidate and Marrickville Council mayor Fiona Byrne. In a very tight contest that came down to less than 680 votes, Tebbutt won the seat with 50.9% of the vote on atwo-party-preferred basis, suffering a swing of 8.5%.^[14] The campaign was marked byanti-Zionist protests as four months earlier, Byrne and Marrickvile Council had controversially voted toboycott Israel. There were no allegations that Tebbutt was involved in any of the anti- or pro-Zionist threats that occurred during the campaign.^[15]

In November 2013, Tebbutt announced she was retiring from politics and would not contest the2015 election.^[16]

After retiring from politics, in 2015 she was appointed as chief executive officer of Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand.^[17] In February 2018 Tebbutt started as CEO of the Mental Health Coordinating Council, the peak body representing the community mental health sector in NSW. In 2023 she became CEO of the not-for-profit Odyssey House NSW, a drug and alcohol recovery organisation.

In 2000, Tebbutt marriedAnthony Albanese,^[3] later theleader of theAustralian Labor Party and 31stprime minister of Australia. Her former state seat ofMarrickville was contained almost entirely within Albanese's federal seat ofGrayndler, leading theGreens to dub them the "King and Queen of Marrickville".^[18] She and Albanese have a son. They separated in early 2019.^[19]

• 1964 births
• Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of New South Wales
• Deputy premiers of New South Wales
• Labor Left politicians
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• Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
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• People educated at De La Salle College, Cronulla
• Australian republicans
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• Ministers for aboriginal affairs and treaty
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• Ministers for disability inclusion
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